Back to jobs

Staff Backend Engineer, Conversational AI

Remote

Trellis is a profitable, fast-growing Series A startup backed by General Catalyst, QED, NYCA, and Amex Ventures. We’re reimagining how people shop for home and auto insurance, using smart technology to make something historically painful feel refreshingly easy.

Every day, we help people save time, money, and unnecessary headaches. Behind the scenes, our fully remote team moves fast, owns their craft, and builds products that genuinely make life better.

Led by a three-time fintech founder with a proven track record of going big, we’re building something special, and we’re just getting started.

If you’re hungry to make an impact and love solving complex problems with a scrappy crew, you’ll love it here.

Position Overview

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Conversational AI team at Trellis, you’ll play a critical role in shaping the future of our AI-driven customer experiences. You’ll architect and build intelligent systems that power natural, engaging conversations between users and our platform. Working closely with cross-functional partners, you’ll transform high-level product initiatives into scalable, well-tested technical solutions.

You’ll lead the way on complex projects by defining scope, setting technical direction, and mentoring teammates along the way. You’ll guide the team through tough challenges, offer thoughtful code reviews, and contribute to a culture of continuous learning and collaboration. Whether you're onboarding new teammates or refining our LLM-driven infrastructure, you’ll be a key force behind our AI innovation.

We believe in paying competitively for great work. As a remote team, we set our salaries at the 75th percentile of national market data in our industry. You can count on your pay being in line with (or above) the market. For this role, the base salary range is $195,000 – $205,000. We review compensation twice a year to make sure we’re staying competitive and rewarding our team’s contributions.

Who You Are

  • Meticulous: You pay attention to detail and take pride in what you deliver
  • Articulate: You succinctly and effectively communicate verbal and written technical and non-technical ideas and topics
  • Kind, not (just) nice: You provide tough feedback in a clear and concise manner that does not diminish or belittle the recipient
  • Opinionated: You bring strong opinions to discussions but are willing to change your mind when presented with new or better information
  • Product-minded: You focus on the “why” just as much as the “what” or “how”
  • Collaborative: You work within your team and cross-functionally to build consensus and achieve results
  • Autonomous: You are self-motivated, able to hold yourself accountable, and can generate high-value work with little direct supervision

What You’ll Do

  • Own the ideation and execution of high-impact projects that directly influence the user experience and business outcomes
  • Flesh out and evolve the Conversational AI Engineering roadmap alongside product and technical leadership
  • Incept projects: identify opportunities, design solutions, and lead implementation
  • Guide integration efforts with external agencies and insurance carriers
  • Normalize, rank, and evaluate results using ML-based predictions to determine optimal user paths 
  • Work closely with our Data Science team to leverage MLMs in tools like DataRobot for retention forecasting and decision logic
  • Ensure scalability and performance across the platform as we continue to grow

What You’ll Need

While you don’t need all of these to be successful in this role, we think you’ll be more successful the more you have

  • 7+ years’ experience developing software in a production environment
  • 4+ years’ experience in a senior engineer role
  • Ability to lead projects from conception through execution
  • Production experience with Node.js and Typescript
  • Proven experience working in backend systems, designing RESTful APIs and codifying business logic on top of data stores
  • Exceptional ability to communicate clearly and concisely, particularly in Slack and technical documents
  • Experience in product development where you were a key decision maker
  • Cross-functional leadership and collaboration experience

 

Why Trellis? Because life’s too short for boring jobs.

We’re a team of builders, dreamers, and doers reshaping an industry that touches every household in America. At Trellis, you’ll have real ownership, meaningful impact, and the chance to grow alongside a company that’s scaling fast.

Here’s what makes Trellis an incredible place to build your career:

  • ✨ A flat, transparent culture where your voice actually matters

  • 🚀 Ground-floor opportunity with room to stretch and grow 

  • 💰 Compensation at the 75th+ percentile 

  • 🏡 100% remote... work from wherever you do your best thinking (In the US or Canada, that is)

  • 🎉 Quarterly team events that keep our fully remote culture connected and fun

And yes, the perks are pretty great too:

  • 🌴 Flexible vacation (seriously, we want you to take it)

  • 🩺 100% employer-paid health insurance for employees (65% for dependents)

  • 💻 Home office budget to set up your perfect workspace

  • 🧘🏼‍♂️ Wellness events throughout the year, because we believe in investing in the full human, not just the employee

  • 💸 Automatic 401(k) contribution, FSAs, bonuses, and equity opportunities to invest in your future

  • 🐣 Paid parental leave

 

👉 If you’re looking for a place where you can do the best work of your career, while building something that actually matters, we’d love to meet you.

Create a Job Alert

Interested in building your career at Trellis? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV*

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Select...
Select...

U.S. Standard Demographic Questions

We invite applicants to share their demographic background. If you choose to complete this survey, your responses may be used to identify areas of improvement in our hiring process.
Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Trellis’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.